Let the music play…

Anyone that knows me, knows that I come from a musical family. My dad is an awesome tenor, my Uncle Gene could sing, was self-taught on many musical instruments and composed music, and my Uncle Willie was tenor for the Oak Ridge Boys, Willie Wynn and the Tennesseans and other successful gospel groups. A large number of my cousins sing or play some sort of instrument. It has always been a favorite past time in our family to sit around, pull out some guitars and sing anything that we all knew the words to (mostly hymns or the Eagles). It would seem that learning a musical instrument would be a no-brainer, right? Read on.
When my dad was in first grade, he wanted nothing more than to play the piano. A sign-up sheet was passed around for anyone that wanted piano lessons. He excitedly signed his name on the list, amidst ribbing by his classmate, who didn’t know why anyone would willingly suffer through piano lessons. At the time, my grandmother, “Ma,” was working in the school cafeteria, as was the mother of my dad’s classmate. Word of the sign-up sheet made its way to the lunchroom, causing Ma to proclaim that she couldn’t afford piano lessons, therefore they could mark her baby Bobby Darrell’s name right off of that list. The classmate’s mother, not knowing how her child forgot to add his name, did it for him.
Fast forward to the seventies. I was 7 or 8, my brother 12 or 13. My dad was interesting in getting both my brother and me involved in music. When asked what type of instrument we wanted to play, we both replied drums. My dad’s response was, “You can play any instrument you want, but drums are not an instrument, they are a noisemaker.” This wasn’t starting out well. Eventually, my brother chose the guitar and I was talked into taking piano lessons (how could I not, after hearing my dad’s piano lesson sob story).
Obviously, we needed to obtain a piano, in order for proper training to begin. It just so happened that our church had an old piano, free to a good home. There were many reasons for this. The ivories were missing from some of the keys and some of the keys didn’t even play. Eisenhower may have been in office the last time that piano was tuned. I’m not even sure that thing was made out of real wood, seriously. But, alas, it was free and I was going to have to prove my stick-to-it-tiveness in order to receive an upgrade.
My dad got a neighbor with a Datsun pickup truck and some rope, gathered up a few other abled bodies and headed to the church to retrieve the piano. After much grunting and groaning and probably a few Doan’s back pills, they managed to get the piano on the back of the Datsun. They drove it through 6 miles or so of country roads before arriving at the house. What the helpers, likely, didn’t know was that due to the severe unattractiveness of the piano, as well as my inability at this stage to play anything that the other occupants of the house wanted to hear, my parents had decided to put the piano in the basement. This required going down a very narrow and steep stairwell. They successfully got the piano off the back of the Datsun (though I seem to recall they may have dented the truck, in the process) and got it to the top of the stairs, where they tied a rope around it. With half of the guys on one side of the piano and the other half on the other side, they started walking that piano down the stairs. Unfortunately, about halfway down the stairs, a mishap occurred and the piano took on a life of its own, rolling the rest of the way down the stairs. I think that was the closest thing to tuning that upright ever got.
So, now we have an actual piano in the house, albeit in the cold, dark, damp, mouse and snake infested basement (you heard me right, snakes!). Every week I went into town to take my lessons, under the somewhat stern rule of  Mrs. Hurt, and then would return home to practice on the horrendous piano down in the windowless dungeon. I soon figured out that playing the piano was hard and I didn’t much love going down in that basement to practice. I tried to bargain for getting a “real” piano in a “real” part of the house, but my folks said I would have to get really good at it before they would invest that kind of money. Enter “Catch 22,” stage left: I wasn’t going to get very good with the existing setup.
About a year into playing Mrs. Hurt informed my parent’s that A) if I did’t practice more, I would not progress at a reasonable rate, B) my fingers were too short to ever be a great player, and C) we were starting to get to music that required use of the foot pedals and my legs were too short to reach them. Thus, I ended my piano career on June 5, 1977 by playing “Le Beau Papillon” at my first and last piano recital.
My brother’s stint with the guitar didn’t last much longer, and he ultimately handed his guitar over to me. I tried, unsuccessfully, to convert it to a lefty guitar and tried to teach myself how to play left-handed when I was about 14. My parent’s didn’t offer up any more music lessons, I think it was decided that neither of us possessed the perseverance for musical greatness. In December, 2010, I went out a bought myself a Fender left-handed guitar. I am teaching myself how to play (thank goodness for the Internet, this time around) and hope to learn to play enough to hang out and play with the family. I still really wish I had learned how to play the drums. I’m sure I would still be playing today, even if I had to learn to play on buckets out in the woods.